Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey’s end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: {290} I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion’s cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold, and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. {300} Jerusalem’s repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell! The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too-- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, “O heart I made, a heart beats here! Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! Thou hast no power nor may’st conceive of mine: But love I gave thee, with myself to love, {310} And thou must love me who have died for thee!” The madman saith He said so: it is strange. -- 1. Karshish. . .To Abib. {that is, phrase finishes on line 7.} 17. snake-stone: a certain kind of stone supposed to be efficacious when placed upon the bite of a snake, in absorbing or charming away the poison. 21. My journeyings were brought to Jericho: i.e., in his last letter. 28. Vespasian: T. Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, Roman emperor, A.D. 70-79; sent by Nero in 66 to conduct the war against the Jews; when proclaimed emperor, left his son Titus to continue the war. 24-33. his ardent scientific interest has caused him to brave all dangers. 49. The Syrian runagate: perhaps I’m writing for nothing in trusting my letter to him. 60. Thou hadst: wouldst have. Zoar: one of the “cities of the plain”, S. E. of the Dead Sea (Gen. 19:22). 65-78. Though he’s deeply impressed with the subject, he approaches it with extreme diffidence, writing to the “all-sagacious” Abib. 82. exhibition: used in its medical sense of administering a remedy. 103. fume: vaporish fancy. 106. As saffron tingeth: Chaucer uses “saffron” metaphorically as a verb:-- “And in Latyn I speke a wordes fewe, To saffron with my predicacioun, And for to stire men to devocioun.”--‘The Pardoner’s Prologue’. 113. Think, could WE penetrate by any drug.